China, the Beijing Olympics, Tibet and corporate sponsorship are a toxic mix.
So where to from here, a Chinese blogger asks?
Tag Archive for 'olympic-games'
Jin Jung-kwon, lecturer in German studies at Chung-Ang University in Seoul:
“China seems to have no intention of making the Olympics a festival that people around the world can enjoy together.”
I’m working on Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about China and its human rights abuses in the year of the Beijing Olympic Games. Now, Amnesty in the UK has launched the first of a series of videos highlighting the Communist regime’s use of torture:
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:
With only 100 days until the Beijing Games, human rights activists are continuing to pressure the Chinese regime and authorities may be starting to feel the pressure, writes Antony Loewenstein.
After months of criticism of its human rights record, a conference in Beijing in late April attempted to challenge the Western perception. Luo Haocai, director of the China Society for Human Rights, said that, “China believes human rights like other rights are not ‘absolute’ and the rights enjoyed should conform to obligations fulfilled”.
After 30 years of rapid growth, he said, the Chinese people enjoyed religious freedom, political and social rights. Wang Chen, director of the Information Office at the State Council, agreed. “China is a developing country with a population of 1.3 billion and China’s human rights development still faces many problems and difficulties.” It’s a view unlikely to be shared by many in the West.
The Beijing Olympics continue to be a rallying cry for human rights activists. Advocacy group Dream for Darfur is now targeting corporate sponsors of the Games, including Coca Cola and McDonalds. BHP Billiton is accused of not speaking out on the ongoing genocide in Darfur. BHP was one of only eight companies to receive an “F” grade for its “moral failings” over Sudan.
Even the Germany Foreign Ministry, in a confidential report leaked to Spiegel, found “significant” failings over human rights, including excessive use of the death penalty, holding dissidents for no apparent reason, censoring the media and an inability to handle criticism. Torture was rampant.
None of these concerns seem to concern most Western companies, however. At a recent China International Exhibition of Police Equipment, countless multinationals displayed goods specifically designed to repress Chinese citizens. The New York Times questioned whether the export of such items might have breached a law passed in Congress after the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings. Like for many internet companies, China is a booming market, seemingly difficult to resist.
There are growing signs, however, that some companies are learning from past mistakes. Yahoo, after launching a Human Rights Funds last year to provide legal and humanitarian assistance for political dissidents, appears to be at least trying to mitigate its previous collusion with the Chinese regime. Yahoo boss Jerry Yang said last week: “I think that I’m a big believer in the American values (but) as we operate around the world, we don’t walk around having a very heavy-handed American point of view.”
Google’s recent announcement of an expanded Chinese workforce is cause for concern, however as was Yahoo’s recent involvement in a “One World, One Web” conference in Beijing.
The Chinese people themselves remain defiant and hurt by the international criticism of their government’s human rights record (though there is some dissent online). Chinese students in the US are battling what they see as biased media coverage and in China itself citizens recently said they trusted state media more than Western outlets to accurately report the Olympic torch relay.
CNN remains in the firing line and Chinese hackers are operating with tacit government support to disable foreign websites.
With 100 days until the beginning of the Beijing Games, now is the time to increase pressure on the weak spots of the Chinese regime (though a recent report suggests the US government is currently trying to scuttle a human rights lawsuit against a senior Chinese leader fearing a chill in trade relations).
Perhaps China watcher John Pomfret, writing in the Washington Post, gets it right. He argues that although the current protests in China are against the foreign media and Tibet, it wouldn’t take much to switch anger towards the Communist Party. In other words, Chinese nationalism is a constantly evolving entity.
Many Chinese are critical of their government; they simply have nowhere to vent their frustrations. This doesn’t mean they want to embrace Western-style capitalism.
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:
The nationalistic genie has escaped the Chinese bottle. Citizens across the world have reacted strongly to the perceived anti-Chinese political and media elite in the West. Protests have mushroomed throughout China against what demonstrators view as a slight against benevolent rule in Tibet. The government is clearly behind much of the reaction.
The internet, mobile phones and chat rooms have become the new meeting place for such activities. More than twenty million people have signed a petition against the French retailer Carrefour because of the failure of authorities in Paris to protect the Olympic torch. Conspiracy theories abound in the Chinese blogosphere about these events.
Student Zhu Xiaomeng made comments to the New York Times that reminded me of similar sentiments I heard in China last year. “Tibet is our country’s territory. You have no right to interfere in our interior affairs.” Microsoft’s China homepage has become a natural home for this kind of venting.
“Love Our China” is a familiar refrain of the protestors. The relationship between the West and China is inevitably being affected, with both sides seemingly incapable or unwilling to engage rationally with the other. Surely now is the time to reach out to Chinese people and try and explain why many Westerners are upset with Beijing’s role in Tibet.
I’ve even tried to contact a few Chinese friends in China to gauge their perspective, and many of them have oscillated between damning the violence on both sides and not fully understanding why pro-Tibetan activists in London, Paris and San Francisco were so vehemently critical of their regime. Evidence that now proves Chinese regime meddling in San Francisco’s pro-China protests reveals the level of paranoia in Beijing.
A recent study found that a majority of Australians wanted the Olympic sponsors to speak out strongly about China’s human rights record. This is unsurprising considering the fact that Amnesty International and Chinese human rights activists have found China falling short of the commitments it made when negotiating the 2008 Games. Arresting a leading Tibetan performer, writer and blogger only reinforces this belief. Equally problematic is a forthcoming museum in Beijing dedicated to the “official” version of Tibetan history.
One prominent, former Chinese diplomat turned spy novelist has argued that pro-China protests will only inflame racial tensions. I was more encouraged to see a recently released Beijing-based news researcher for the New York Times call this week for greater press freedom.
However, the ongoing controversy over China’s human rights record is not just about the Beijing Olympic Games. As the West wrestles with the notion of an “after-America” world, despotic regimes are increasingly turning to China for moral, military and diplomatic assistance. Recent evidence suggests that China is providing arms and troops to save Robert Mugabe’s embattled Zimbabwean dictatorship.
London’s Independent warned that after years of complaining about Washington’s support of barbaric regimes, it’s time to worry about the dawning of a new age:
“As for Mr Mugabe, he marked Zimbabwean Independence Day yesterday by complaining of neo-colonialism and how Britain wants to retake control of Zimbabwe. He and other African leaders should think more carefully. There is a danger of their countries becoming a victim of a re-colonisation. But the threat is not from the West. It comes from the East.”
While it’s never healthy to romanticise the Tibetan cause or the Dalai Lama and the history often paints a contradictory picture, one can hope that the Olympic Games provides international attention to an occupation that is largely forgotten in the Western media.
Here’s to a celebration of Chinese human rights:
Known among schoolmates for his spirited antics and ability to make light of almost any situation, classroom jokester Wei Xiang, 11, was put to death by the Chinese government for drawing a mustache on an image of Education Minister Zhou Ji in one of his textbooks, sources reported Monday. “An enemy of the state has been dealt with accordingly,” government spokesman Xu Qi said following Wei’s execution by firing squad. “Let this be a lesson to other children considering wising off or otherwise wasting valuable class time.” The fifth-grader previously served a six-month term in solitary confinement at Qincheng Prison after referring to the Tang Dynasty as “the Stank Dynasty” during a history lesson in 2007.
On more serious matters, sponsors of the Beijing Games are increasingly being targeted.
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:
The international outcry over China’s human rights abuses was temporarily disrupted this week with news from Beijing that the regime was determined to manage the city’s pollution problems by halting building construction after July for two months. Unfortunately, many of the Games’ venues are not yet finished and it remains to be seen whether they will be completed in time. The exact plans remain a state secret, but at least half of Beijing’s 3.3 million cars will probably be banned during the Games.
The real story, however, remains the growing international calls for action on China’s belligerence. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recent trip to Beijing highlighted the difficulties of this position. The British press fawned over him. London’s Independent praised him for speaking “unpalatable home truths” about the troubles in China. “The world needs more leaders like this”, they gushed. “We hope he has started as he means to go on.”
The Guardian warned China not to parade the Olympic torch through Tibet, calling it “cultural imperialism”. Murdoch’s Sun tabloid, however, appeared unwilling to upset the Chinese. At least Olympic organisers finally admitted the protests were a “crisis” and Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, announced he would boycott the opening ceremonies.
Leading Australian Sinologist Professor Geremie Barme explained that the Chinese people were aware that Rudd had spoken Mandarin at Peking University, “but all mention of Tibet, apart from Tibet being part of China’s sovereign territory, has been expunged from the record.” One brave Chinese dissident even challenged the Chinese people to seriously examine the country’s record in Tibet. “I urge the Chinese people to take a long, hard look at themselves”, Jonathan Li said, “and stop being so uptight”.
Rudd was walking a fine line, of course. Amnesty International Australia has called on the Australian government to engage in a “strong and robust dialogue” between Australia and China, especially the promotion of human rights and minority rights. Human Rights Watch’s position is similar.
The expected backlash against protestors is starting to occur - and not just Chinese President Hu Jintao defending his crackdown in Tibet as “a problem of safeguarding national unification”. One leading human rights campaigner, Liu Xiaobo, warns demonstrators that: “If the Games fail, human rights will suffer. The government would stop paying attention to the rest of the world. I personally think: We want the Games and we want human rights to be respected.” One Chinese-American woman, Helen Zia, explained why she wanted to carry the torch in San Francisco, in a show of solidarity towards a “changing” China.
The global outrage over the torch relay has sparked a dormant nationalistic surge in China. “Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing”, wrote Philip Bowring in the International Herald Tribune, “but mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded, young bull”. Some Chinese bloggers are calling for a blacklist of French goods after the recent scuffles in Paris. Chinese hackers are targeting pro-Tibetan websites and remain unforgiving of perceived slights against their Olympic moment.
A former Beijing chief for the New York Times explained the majority of Chinese youth have been beneficiaries of massive economic growth and “can’t imagine why Tibetans would turn up their noses at rising incomes and the promise of a more prosperous future. The loss of a homeland just doesn’t compute as a valid concern.” Perhaps the Tibet protests have backfired?.
The most moving news of the week was the words of Zeng Jinyan, the wife of recently imprisoned dissident Hu Jia. “I feel great pain and hopelessness”, she wrote. “But no matter what, I will do my best to protect my family, and do all I can to allow Hu Jia to come back home as soon as possible.”
While the Chinese people are mainly hostile to the Tibetan cause and nationalism is thriving, some savvy tech-heads are causing chaos:
Several websites running pro-Tibet campaigns have been targeted by internet criminals, it has been claimed.
Experts at ScanSafe, an internet security firm, said that two popular websites - SaveTibet.org and FreeTibet.org - have been specifically targeted by hackers.
It is not clear who is behind the attacks, or what their motivation is, but the cyberstrikes are believed to emanate from computer servers in Taiwan and used a well-known vulnerability in some websites to link to invisible pages. These then attempt to force computers with inadequate protection to download spying programs, which can be used to track their habits or take control of their machines.
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:
The Beijing Games is shaping up as a public relations disaster for the Chinese Communist Party. Four months from the opening ceremony and global protests against the torch relay are gathering speed. Tibetan activists are successfully highlighting their cause to the world, and the international route of the torch is now in serious doubt.
Demonstrators in London caused a security breach and severe embarrassment to the organisers. The London 2012 Olympics chief was overheard calling Chinese officials guarding the torch as “thugs”. The Paris leg of the relay was cancelled after protests, although China’s Foreign Ministry denied this was the case.
Australia’s Olympic chief, John Coates, appears resigned to the reality of months of controversy surrounding Beijing’s authoritarianism and pressure is growing on Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to boycott the opening ceremony. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has urged avoiding a boycott, though Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has encouraged President George W. Bush to take a stand.
International calls to boycott the Games are accelerating. London’s Independent editorialised this week that London’s torch fiasco was reminiscent of Hitler’s attempt at the 1936 Olympics to showcase Nazi Germany. The paper’s columnist Johann Hari argued that British athletes should take part in the August Games if the Chinese release the country’s 10 greatest human rights activists, invite the Dalai Lama to Beijing to talk and allow a legitimate UN peacekeeping force into Darfur.
The Chinese people have been largely shielded from the torch relay protests though the local media showed brief shots of the London scuffles. Chinese bloggers were incensed at what they viewed as anti-Beijing media coverage on CNN and BBC and millions of web users signed an online petition protesting biased Western media coverage of the recent Tibetan uprising. Interestingly, one of the Chinese torchbearers was interviewed before arriving in London and spoke of his pride at being involved and dreamed that “one day one of my kids will be able to compete in a future Olympic Games and even win a gold medal.”
Chinese authorities have attempted to counter the negative global coverage of its aggression in Tibet. One online story quoted a Tibetan author who said the Dalai Lama had “never done anything good” and was ruining Tibet in the name of human rights and religion. An opinion piece warned America to butt out of criticising China’s behaviour and again alleged that the Dalai Lama was the organiser of the recent violence. An Australian eyewitness has provided an alternative view.
More ominously, China has threatened to increase its “re-education” campaign against Tibetans. Officials called on Buddhist monks to be Chinese patriots. Another oppressed ethnic group, the Uighur Muslims, are also now openly rebelling against Chinese rule in a clear attempt to gain international attention.
Human rights activists are determined to use the Olympics as a platform to highlight China’s global responsibilities. A leading New York Times columnist wrote this week that China had to face some “greater truths” about its failed policies in Tibet. Pressure is increasing on Western internet multinationals doing business in repressive regimes to institute better mechanisms to avoid assisting persecution of dissidents.
It is always important to maintain perspective, however. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that a majority of Chinese polled believe that the internet should be “controlled” by the government, a majority believed the information they read on government websites and “an influential and highly informed group of elite Chinese bloggers continues to test the limits and vigilance of the censors.”
Censorship is clearly in the eye of the beholder.
The imprisonment of yet another Chinese dissident yesterday, Hu Jia, proves that the Communist regime has no intention of relaxing its authoritarianism before the August Games.
It should therefore expect the global community to act accordingly.
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:
Human rights activists have dubbed the Beijing Games the “Genocide Olympics” over concerns of China’s involvement in the Darfur crisis. The situation there is worsening by the day. Human Rights First claims that China is arming the conflict.
The recent resignation of filmmaker Steven Spielberg as an artistic advisor to the event only heightened fears that China’s rapid push towards economic development has come at the cost of human lives around the world. Human rights group Reporters Without Borders says that, “the influence of China in African affairs has been very toxic for democracy”.
One Chinese blogger sarcastically praised the regime for successfully shielding its citizens from the realities of his country’s foreign policy. The Communist regime is desperate to keep politics and sport diametrically opposed. Human Rights Watch has publicly stated that this is impossible.
The internet has allowed Chinese citizens the opportunity to challenge some of the strict doctrines in the daily media. China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua, was recently forced to run a rare apology after doctoring an image of Tibetan wildlife grazing near a high-speed train. Web users spotted the deception and caused a massive online campaign against the use of Photoshop. It was just one example of the relatively new Chinese public phenomenon of activism, albeit of the non-political kind.
The international community is increasingly concerned over the role of Western multinationals in China’s web filtering. The European Union is currently discussing the imposition of trade barriers for firms that conduct business in nations that restrict free speech. A number of Chinese dissidents, based in the United States, have announced they will sue Yahoo!. The men claim that the internet company removed their names from search returns without legally valid reasons and they risk arrest if they return to the homeland.
Bad publicity is clearly a worry for Yahoo! The company’s Chief Executive, Jerry Yang, has written to the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and asked the Bush administration to lobby the Chinese regime to release dissidents imprisoned after the collusion of his company. The firm spent US$1.6 million in 2007 pressuring the American government in relation to the foreign jurisdiction over US companies.
The Chinese regime fears an avalanche of negative publicity in the coming months. The recent explosion of Tibetan protests both inside Tibet and China itself – with a growing number of young Tibetans rejecting the Dalai Lama’s “Middle Way” towards China - led to a predictable Chinese media onslaught against the uprising. Numerous websites were blocked, including YouTube, and Yahoo! and Microsoft (briefly) appeared to assist the regime in searching for “suspects” in the demonstrations. The vast majority of Chinese bloggers supported the crackdown but an international poll found many global citizens were critical of Chinese policies towards Tibet.
Tightening the limits of free speech online is the officially favoured method of social control. It is bound to fail, not least because users have developed their own language to circumvent the filtering. But the regime is determined, nonetheless. Witness this recent announcement:
“News from the Ministry of Public Security is that 13 Chinese ministries have been taking a joint action since last month to regulate online order, with the emphasis being given to the cleaning out of such content as candid snapshots, nude pictures and “unhealthy” adult literature.”
“During the campaign, the Chinese ministries will focus on cracking down on four kinds of illegal behaviour, including spreading abundant erotic information to make profit by taking advantage of Internet and mobile phones; launching bawdry websites in a foreign country to spread unhealthy content to and develop members in China; organizing obscene online performances or prostitution-related activities; and committing such crimes as online fraud, theft, gambling and sale of forbidden goods.”
“In addition, the ministries will clean out vulgar content such as candid snapshots, nude and adult literature from websites and shut down blogs that help transmit erotic graphics and text. They will ask search engine service providers to take measures to block unhealthy content within the given deadlines and completely eliminate those erotic websites.”
Australia’s former Human Rights Commissioner, Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM, told a conference in Taiwan in late February that China had pledged to improve its human rights record but there was no evidence to support this idea. In fact, the opposite was occurring. He listed the various ways in which citizens were denied basic civil and political liberties – including the refusal to hold open and free elections and the lack of freedom of speech – and put forward a number of demands that Beijing could adopt. These included:
- The cessation of hostilities against Falun Gong practitioners.
- The withdrawal of economic and political aid to the Sudanese government.
- The granting of amnesty to all political prisoners.
- A moratorium on the death penalty in 2008.
Although the regime has recognised the importance of citizens engaging with officials – netizens were allowed to post questions and advice for Premier Wen Jinbao in early 2008 - these developments are minimal. The success of China’s internet repression is due to a savvy combination of societal pressure and self-censorship. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been employed to manage “security” during the Games. Curiously, the BBC English website became available in late March after years of censorship.
Rumours are currently circulating that engineers with some of China’s biggest technology companies have been tasked to unblock internet access during the August Games, allowing foreigners an unfiltered experience at some internet cafes and conference centres and through access jacks in hotels. The coming period will reveal the lengths to which the Chinese authorities will go to hide its crackdown on dissidents, journalists, human rights activists and the poor. The initial signs are not encouraging.
Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist, blogger and author
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:
1996 was dubbed China’s “Year of the Internet.” Only 150,000 people were connected, roughly one in 10,000. The vast majority of the mainland had never seen a computer and there were 17 people for every available phone line.
A computer engineer in his 30s, dubbed Comrade X, told Wired magazine in 1996 that the regime was determined to control the flow of information. “People are used to being wary”, he said, “and the general sense that you are under surveillance acts as a disincentive. The key to controlling the net in China is in managing people, and this is a process that begins the moment you purchase a modem.”
In just over a decade, the Communist country has become the world’s largest internet market with well over 210 million users - adding six million newbies a month - and developed a burgeoning scene that has connected disparate segments of a fractured society.
Gamers in rural areas play with city dwellers. Boys in major cities connect with girls on the other side of the country. Local officials are forced to respond to citizen’s complaints and needs. The web has increased transparency but also allowed authorities to better monitor what its citizens are thinking and writing. There are only a tiny percentage of Chinese actively involved in the political process advocating for democratic change.
The Chinese Community Party, with the assistance of Western internet firms, has established a sophisticated filtering system, known as the “Great Firewall” or the “Golden Shield.” It blocks and censors countless websites from within China and overseas, physically monitoring all information coming in and out of the country. Routers are employed to detect problematic keywords, from Taiwan to Tibet and democracy to Falun Gong. The regime is rumoured to have up to 30,000 individuals checking daily for “harmful information”. The system, however, is not infallible and many web users utilise proxies to circumvent the filtering.
The exact extent of the censorship is impossible to determine but leaks occasionally provide an insight into the mind of the regime’s paranoia. “Working instructions” from a propaganda unit emerged in early 2008 that detailed the requirements to be implemented. Some examples:
- On the assassination of [Pakistani politician Benazir] Bhutto, only report on the objective occurrences and reactions from various parties, do not associate the event with Pakistan’s internal struggles, or with Pakistani terrorist forces, thus avoiding attracting fire onto ourselves and getting involved in Pakistan’s internal problems.
- Strengthen positive guidance. Web sites should proactively guide public opinion in a positive way, highlight positive voices and create a pro-NPC online environment.
The vast majority of Chinese web users are interested in downloading films, chatting to boys and girls and playing online games. I discovered during my investigations in China in 2007 that the issue of censorship didn’t greatly bother many citizens. They knew it existed and they found ways around it. Nobody told me they felt repressed or silenced. Although most people I met were aware of filtering employed by the regime, they didn’t really understand how many sites were being blocked. Ignorance was the key driver in their attitudes. Human rights activists viewed the system radically differently, of course, but the average blogger and web user was kept blissfully clueless thanks to a supine state media.
The Western media’s obsession with the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre has clouded the ability of outsiders to cover the undoubted societal advances since that fateful event. Think-tanks are flourishing. Environmentalists are able to launch public campaigns. Local bloggers rally around parents who have had children stolen to work as slaves in brick kilns. Internet majors such as Google are being challenged for their collusion with officials, though CNN was recently caught appeasing Chinese sentiments over its perceived pro-Tibetan stance.
Despite these advances, China’s human rights record remains deeply troubling. Its control over the internet is being copied around the world. The approaching Beijing Olympic Games has revealed the regime’s true colours with leading dissidents arrested and charged on spurious charges of “subverting” the state. Hu Jia is the leading example of this trend and is awaiting sentence soon.
“Why can’t China accept that dissent and argument are part of being a normal country?”, asks leading Hong Kong-based academic and former CNN journalist Rebecca MacKinnon. “Why behave in such an insecure manner that violates international human rights norms, damages China’s international image, and distracts media attention away from the Chinese people’s genuine accomplishments over the past 30 years - as well as from the excitement of the sports competition itself?”
The August Games provide a unique opportunity to highlight China’s inherent contradictions. It is at once desperate to impress a sceptical world that it’s genuine about entering the global conversation on trade, the environment and human rights but conscious that its excesses have the possibility to expose its deeply engrained authoritarianism. Its recent crackdown on Tibetan protestors resulted in international calls to boycott the Olympic opening ceremony in protest.
The regime promised in 2007 to maintain “socialism for 100 years”, dashing any hopes of speedy democratic reforms. Internal dissent, routinely expressed through blogs and online forums, is an encouraging sign that citizens will no longer remain silent in the face of economic and political hardship. The internet may not revolutionise the nation but it will be continue to connect a young population unwilling to accept the doctrines of previous generations.
Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist, blogger and author.
If true, this leak to Reporters Without Borders is a revealing insight into a totalitarian mindset:
Reporters Without Borders has obtained a classified memo from Chinese sources that sets out the behaviour that government officials should adopt with foreign journalists before and during the Beijing Olympic Games. It tells them to display openness but also to try to control and influence the international media’s coverage.
“While introducing more flexible rules for foreign journalists in January 2007, the Chinese authorities also established a nationwide policy for supervising and influencing the international media,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Parts of this classified memo show there is a real concern to provide better information to foreign journalists, but it also reveals that the authorities never abandoned their intention to censor the news.”
The press freedom organisation added: “While the Olympic flame is on its way to Beijing, we call on the International Olympic Committee to condemn any attempt by the Chinese authorities to obstruct the work of foreign journalists. The practices revealed by this document contradict the Chinese government’s undertaking in 2001 to allow complete press freedom.”
Dating from 2007 and entitled “Working recommendations for reinforcing management efficiency after the ’Rules for interviews by foreign journalists during the Beijing Olympic Games and their preparatory period’ take effect,” the memo obtained by Reporters Without Borders consists of instructions from the national authorities to those in charge of a province (including the local propaganda department and public security) on how to handle public relations and control press coverage.
Meanwhile, Chinese public opinion is predominantly against Tibet.
International PEN is a group of global writers dedicated to human rights for other writers less fortunate than us. I am a Sydney member.
Its latest campaign is dedicated to highlighting the issues relating to the upcoming Beijing Olympics:
The poem ‘June’ by imprisoned Chinese poet and journalist Shi Tao is relaying around the world, country to country, language to language, until it reaches Beijing for the Olympics in August.
PEN Centres around the world have translated ‘June’ to over 60 (and counting) of the world’s languages.
When the poem arrives at a new location, you can read and hear a new translation.
The PEN Poem Relay begins in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China, the poet Shi Tao’s hometown. On March 30, the poem arrives at Greek PEN Centre (at the same time the Olympic Torch arrives in Panathinaiko Stadium in Greece).
My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed:
Fidel Castro controlled Cuba for nearly half a century. His rule was defined by defiance and dictatorship, brutal repression against dissidents and the management of an immoral American embargo. Free speech has always been the Achilles’ heel of the regime.
During my visit to the island last year – researching a book on the internet in non-democratic countries – I saw a population that craved access to the outside world.
Web and mobile phone penetration is the lowest in Latin America. I met computer students who studied the internet, but couldn’t access an unfiltered system. Cyber-rebels are increasingly challenging this information apartheid. I talked with hip-hop kids who loved gangsta rap they saw on satellite television. They cared little for revolutionary thought. Being able to buy consumer goods such as ipods was far more important.
It was a similar pattern across the globe, as I travelled from Egypt to Iran, Syria to Saudi Arabia and finally China.
The internet was playing a leading role in citizens talking to government and often challenging its archaic rules. Some simply wanted to meet boys and girls online. Others loved downloading pirated films and music. Only a handful craved political engagement.
A growing number of repressive regimes are experiencing the “Dictator’s Dilemma” defined in 1993 by Christopher Kedzie as “having to choose between open communications (encouraging economic development) and closed communications (controlling ‘dangerous’ ideas)”.
China maintains the world’s most effective internet censorship, dubbed “The Great Firewall” or “The Golden Shield Project”.
Tens of thousands of people are employed to monitor web traffic. Western companies such as Cisco, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft have willingly assisted officials in their goals and sensitive subjects such Taiwan, Tibet and democracy are routinely excised.
Over 210 million Chinese netizens – with 200,000 more going online for the first time every day – are leading a massive shift in the country’s relationship with central power, both allowing the regime a unique way to gauge public opinion and an opportunity for others to challenge corruption and pollution.
Although China is preparing for the likely onslaught of international pressure during the August Olympics over its human rights violations, the Communist nation is only the most infamous example of internet censorship.
Iran, especially under the leadership of hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has led a purging of journalists, dissidents, prominent women and unionists.
Although the country’s online culture is arguably one of the most robust in the Middle East – and I met many bloggers there who bravely challenged the mullah’s grip on power – Western companies are contributing to the country’s isolation.
Yahoo and Microsoft quietly removed Iran from the country lists of their webmail services last year, claiming US sanctions forced their hand. My investigations suggest that these moves were probably a pre-emptive buckle, fearful of Bush administration sanction. Google’s Gmail service still features Iran on its country list.
Internet censorship is becoming a key human rights issue around the world, highlighted by leading NGOs and the European Union.
In a new book titled Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Policy, writers Ronald Deibart and Rafal Rohozinski remain optimistic that despite the best efforts of many dictatorial regimes, “it seems apparent that no one agent will be able to dominate cyberspace entirely, but many will be able to push technologies, regulations, and norms that affect it.”
I spent time in Saudi Arabia with leading blogger and activist Fouad al-Farhan. He is a Muslim moderate who campaigns for the establishment of democratic institutions in the US-backed dictatorship. He was arrested in late 2007 and remains imprisoned for unspecified “crimes” but sources suggest it is because he campaigned for the release of jailed activists.
Farhan’s writings provide an invaluable insight into one of the most repressive nations on earth.
Cinemas and music concerts are banned. Women are not allowed to drive or work in most industries. He told me about the ways in which some of his friends and families wanted to embrace gradual change while others desired going to Iraq and fighting the American “invaders”.
Without bloggers in Saudi Arabia, we would have little idea of the nation’s true state.
The internet will not automatically democratise all societies or bring Western-style reform. Many bloggers and activists I met across the world hoped for the exact opposite.
Its uncontrolled unpredictability has proven to the mainstream media that local voices will usually trump their own superficial understandings.
As China tries to defend its aggressive behaviour against protesting Tibetans - calling them “criminals” and arresting hundreds of people - the regime’s battle against the internet is temporarily successful but ultimately futile. The Times London explains:
YouTube, the video-sharing website which has become a home to amateur footage of news events, has been blocked to Chinese users since Saturday, and there are also reports that the news pages of Yahoo!, the internet portal, have been made inaccessible.
In addition, the entire Guardian website has been closed down as of today, and other sites - including Times Online - have had access to their coverage of recent events in Tibet severely restricted.
Popular sites which assimilate news from different sources - such as Google News - have been subject to what is known as ‘keyword filtering’, where a Chinese internet user attempting to load a page which contains words such as ‘Tibet’ or ‘Dalai Lama’ will see the site stall.
Times Online has also learned that the editors of some of the most popular ‘forum’ - or bulletin board - sites in China have been directly contacted by government officials and told not to publish any content relating to the recent protests.
Flickr, the photo-sharing website, Wikipedia, and the LA Times, the US newspaper, are among the other sites to which access has been cut off.
Despite the best efforts of the regime, images will emerge:
The protests in Tibet continue against Chinese rule . Scores are dead. China has blocked YouTube in an attempt to stop videos emerging from its brutality. Australia’s Prime Minister has been urged to use his “influence” with Beijing. Bloggers are transmitting news. The Dalai Lama is caught in the middle. The August Olympic Games could be affected.
China only has itself to blame. Authoritarianism is always bound to fail. I salute the bravery of the Tibetans standing up to Chinese aggression.
A moving letter was published in today’s Australian newspaper:
The current uprisings in Tibet are a reaction to the repressive treatment of ethnic Tibetans handed down to them by their Han rulers, ever since mainland China took more direct control there in 1959. There is no way that Tibetans’ human rights can reasonably be said to have been respected since that time. The harsh repression of the protests now going on there proves that.
However, China gave a solemn undertaking to the world community, represented by the International Olympic Committee, that it would respect human rights, as a pre-requisite for being allowed to hold the Olympics on its soil. The IOC must have been pretty gullible to swallow that whopper.
The whole world can now see more clearly that the totalitarian regime there has no intention of respecting human rights, now or at any other time—not even the rights of its own Chinese citizens.
Having reneged on that empty promise of respecting human rights, China’s Games should be cancelled.
The IOC needs to get that right.
If it doesn’t, then athletes from all freedom-loving countries should boycott.
Mary Pang
Hong Kong
The Dalai Lama says Beijing should host the Games.
The Chinese blogosphere speaks:
After Steven Spielberg withdrew as artistic director for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, it is not surprising to read angry words towards him in the Chinese press, both on- and off-line. But are there other Chinese who think differently on this issue? Shanghai-based scholar and cultural critic Wang Xiaoyu (王晓渔) published the following blog post. The sarcastic tone is not only Wang’s personal writing style, but is also a common trait in many blog writings in the heavily policed Chinese blogosphere, when the subject is politically charged.